Semiconductor processing is an intensive activity during which the fabrication of several devices is integrated to achieve a working microelectronic device. Miniaturization is the process of crowding more semiconductive devices onto a smaller substrate area in order to achieve better device speed, lower energy usage, and better device portability, among others. New processing methods must often be developed to enable miniaturization to be realized.
As the footprint of a DRAM cell has continued to decrease in size, the need for a large capacitor has remained. As the container capacitor is physically shrunk, the inner surface of the storage node becomes relatively smaller due to issues such as photolithography limitations and sloping sidewalls from the etch process. Thus, what is needed is a data storage device that overcomes some of the challenges of the prior art.